New Golfweek classic/modern rankings

If you pay even a slight bit of attention to golf, you know that everybody is in the ranking game. Golf Digest has been in the game for a long time. Golf Magazine has their own rankings. Even business journals do ridiculous rankings based only on course ratings (and are kind of worthless in my estimation).

My favorite rankings, however, come from Golfweek. The weekly publication’s biggest two rankings are its listing of its top 100 Classic courses and top 100 modern courses. I like these because classic courses and modern courses are two totally different animals. For a Minnesota example, how exactly do you compare Interlachen Country Club, which was built in the early 1900s and Spring Hill Golf Club, which is around 10 years old? One was built when technology didn’t exactly allow for a lot of earth moving, the other during a time when dirt was so easily moved that visual deception is part of the designer’s game.

I, personally, am a fan of classic courses. I love how they fit pretty naturally into the earth. I like that in many cases controlling your golf ball is as important as attempting to overpower the course. I like that classic courses are much more walkable and very few are cart-path only or feature long green-to-tee walks.